John Shirley

The darkness creeps upon us and we shudder, or it suddenly startles and we scream. There need be no monsters for us to be terrified in the dark, but if there are, they are just as often human and supernatural. Join us in this outstanding annual exploration of the year's best dark fiction that includes stories of quiet fear, the utterly fantastic, the weirdly surreal, atmospheric noir, mysterious hauntings, seductive nightmares, and frighteningly plausible futures. Featuring thirty-five tales from masterful authors and talented new writers sure to make you reconsider walking in the shadows alone...

Kick out the jams with hot licks and fantastic riffs on rock and roll from the only kind of fiction that feeds the soul: science fiction and fantasy. Like rock, speculative fiction is larger than life, there's no limit on where it can take you. And neither is — even now — fully respectable. Electrifying stories with the drive, the emotion, the soul of rock. Headliners and rising stars take the stage with their greatest hits. Find a place, grab some space...get ready to rock!

"Resident Evil: Retribution in 3D" will be released on September 14, 2012. It is the fifth instalment in the massively successful "Resident Evil" film series, based on the hugely popular Capcom survival horror video game series "Resident Evil". The movie stars Milla Jovovitch and Wentworth Miller and is directed by Paul WS Anderson. This is the official novelization of the brand-new movie.

It's too late! The living dead have already taken over the world. Your brains have been devoured. Nothing is left but spasms of ravenous need — an obscene hunger for even more zombie fiction. Forget the metaphors and the mildly scary. You want shock, you want grue, you want disturbing, gut-wrenching, skull-crunching zombie stories that take you over the edge and go splat. You want the bloody best of the ultimate undead. You have no choice...you...must...have...Extreme Zombies!

The prequel story to the award-winning and bestselling video game franchise. How the majesty of Rapture, the shining city below the sea, became an instant dystopiaIt's the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal has redefined American politics. Taxes are at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has brought a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business has many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom is diminishing...and many are desperate to take that freedom back. Among them is a great dreamer, an immigrant who pulled himself from the depths of poverty to become one of the wealthiest and admired men in the world. That man is Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserve better. And so he set out to create the impossible, a utopia free from government, censorship, and moral restrictions on science--where what you give is what you get. He created Rapture--the shining city below the sea. But as we all know, this utopia suffered a great tragedy. This is the story of how it all came to be...and how it all ended.

Twenty-year-old Russ arrives in the northern California town of Freedom to visit his dad. Freedom has peculiarities other than its odd name: the local mayor's ideas of "decentralization" have left it without normal connections to state or federal government and minimal public services. Russ meets an interesting young woman, Pendra, but before he can get to know much about Freedom or its people, a savage tsunami strikes the West Coast. The wave of human brutality that soon hits the isolated town proves more dangerous to the survivors than the natural disaster. Russ, his father, Pendra, and the other townsfolk must tap all their courage and ingenuity — and find strength they never knew they had — if they have any hope of living to find real freedom!

WHAT KIND OF MAN MAKES A LIVING IN HELL? His name’s Roland. Soldier class, a former mercenary, he’s on a full-time mission to scrape a living out of the most dangerous planet in the galaxy. Is he qualified? He’s well armed, he’s ruthless, and he’s tougher than skag hide. And, oh yeah—he’s strapped with some of the most exotic weaponry this side of the Vault, not to mention possessing fists like chunks of steel. Zac Finn and his wife and young son had better get on the right side of Roland, because a stopover in orbit has turned into a nightmarish fall to the unforgiving landscape of the Borderlands. Zac hopes to find a strange new alien treasure in the Borderlands to turn his down-spiraling life around. But his wife, Marla, and his son, Cal, just want to survive, and reunite, because catastrophe has left them separated by hundreds of klicks. Their chances aren’t good . . . and Roland is all that stands between them and the planet’s kill-crazed Psychos and murderous bandits—not to mention the grotesque primals, giant wyrm squids, insane tunnel rats, voracious skags, brutal bruisers, and ruthless mercs. . . . An original novel set in the universe of the Rated M for Mature video game created by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games.

After barely surviving a plane crash, a man discovers an undersea city called Rapture; a failed utopia created by Jack Ryan, a man who looked to embrace a world surrounding the objectivist ideals of Ayn Rand. Power and greed have run amok, the city has succumbed to civil war and the only question is who really deserves to survive this maniacal debacle of science gone mad.

The prequel story to the award-winning and bestselling BioShock video game franchise: how the majesty of Rapture, the shining city below the sea, became an instant dystopia It's the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal has redefined American politics. Taxes are at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has brought a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business has many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom is diminishing . . . and many are desperate to take there freedom back. Among them is a great dreamer, an immigrant who pulled himself from the depths of poverty to become one of the wealthiest and admired men in the world. That man is Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserve better. And so he set out to create the impossible, a utopia free from government, censorship, and moral restrictions on science--where what you give is what you get. He created Rapture---the shining city below the sea. But as we all know, this utopia suffered a great tragedy. This is the story of how it all came to be . . .and how it all ended.

An original dark and gritty urban fantasy novel by the acclaimed and award-winning author John Shirley. In near-future New York City, bounty hunter Gabriel Bleak, a man with the ability to communicate with the dead, is relentlessly hunted by a clandestine government organization with mysterious links to his past. Now Bleak and other members of the Shadow Community - a slowly growing underground group who all have supernatural abilities, and who all considered a threat to national security - must uncover the looming danger brought about by those at the upper echelons of power - a return to the dark ages…and quite possibly a capitulation to the demonic.

Stories deal with the impact of television on self-image, the mental breakdown of a prostitute on crack, drug addiction, and modern city life.